The Renewable Energy Component of the Indo-German Energy Programme (IGEN-RE) is a bilateral cooperation project with the Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) carried out by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Launched in 2010, the project aims to promote renewable energy in rural areas. For more information please visit our website: www.igen-re.in.

Tuesday, 6 August 2013

“How does a solar water pump look
like, sir? How long will it take to provide water to one hector of land? Will the
pump work in winter? ” These were some of the questions thrown at us during an
interactive session with local farmers in the Allauli village of Khagaria
district of Bihar. It took us almost seven and half-hours to reach the village from
Patna because of the extremely poor road conditions and heavy rainfall. The farmers were waiting for us at the local
panchayat bhavan. The enthusiasm was evident as there were around 25 farmers
waiting for us for more than two hours, some of them travelling as far as 20
kilometers. We were at the village to discuss the potentials for irrigating
agricultural land through solar water pumps.

The increasing price of diesel is
making it difficult for the farmers to properly irrigate their agricultural
land using diesel pumps. As farmers are trying to use less water to save costs
on diesel, yields and therewith potential incomes are declining. Some farmers
even leave a portion of their land completely unutilized over a substantial
period of the year. The farmers are searching for affordable alternatives to irrigate
their agricultural lands. Their interest was evident from the questions they
asked during the interactive session. Their questions were relating to the benefits
and costs of the technology, sources of financing, as well as after sales
services.

Farmers during the interactive session

Increasing fossil fuel prices and
decreasing prices for solar modules in the global market, create an opportune
moment for applying solar water pumps. A study[2]
conducted by GIZ highlights that Bihar is one of the few states, which have the
perfect conditions for using solar water pumps for irrigation. The most crucial
barriers to a higher uptake of solar pumps still include the high upfront cost
of the technology, a lack of awareness about the potential of solar pumping
among farmers and banks, as well as the lack of enterprise networks to supply
pumps and provide serviceall over the
state.

The field visit provided us with a
lot of food for thought. It became clear that most farmers have little idea of
how a solar water pump works and what benefits it could bring. Based on our
field visit and interactions with farmers, it was evident that there is an
urgent need for generating awareness about the technology amongst the farmers.
Understanding the technology is the initial step to generate interest and
demand for the product. A flexible financial product tuned to the scale of the
expenditures currently incurred by farmers for purchasing diesel would make
solar water pumps much more affordable. IGEN-RE has therefore initiated
discussions with a diverse group of stakeholders such as farmers groups, local
NGOs, private enterprises, rural banks and government officials to develop
awareness and financing schemes for solar water pumps in Bihar. More
information will be available on the IGEN-RE Blog soon.
___________________________

[1]
This blog is prepared with inputs from Mr.Santosh Kumar Singh who was also a
part of the field visit.